As a card-carrying communist, Kearney does not like what he hears emanating from the bench of federal bankruptcy Judge Christopher M. Klein.

Statements such as this: "While the Contracts Clause is a key navigational star in the firmament of our Constitution and economic universe ... it is subject to being eclipsed by the Bankruptcy Clause."

Translation: Breaking contracts is what we do, Bub.

That augurs ill for Stockton city employees. Klein already declined to stop the city from terminating lifetime retiree medical benefits. Now he's sending clear signals that pensions are fair game.

Pensions are one form of compensation the city left intact. But Wall Street bond insurers are crying foul. They argue everybody should share the pain. The case resumes in January.

If Klein rules for Wall Street and cuts pensions, the ICFI dreads "that will lay down a precedent that would affect every city in California."

"More precisely," Kearney writes, "a precedent that would affect every worker in California and any other state that permits cities to file bankruptcy under chapter 9."

If the "ruling class" prevails, "1.6 million workers statewide are no more important than a handful of rich investors at Assured Guaranty, or any other parasitic financier."

In other words, Stockton's bankruptcy is a historic entrée for Wall Street to gain more dominance and "impose the burden of the economic crisis on the working class."

You don't have to be a pinko to agree with some of that.

What was the mortgage meltdown but Kearney's fear writ large? Wall Street and the finance industry caused the crash; government bailed them out with trillions of our money; we live in austerity while they pop the corks.

I called the World Socialist website and left a message for Kearney. He returned my call - from Stockton.

Turns out he is a Stockton lawyer.

Kearney, 36, said he was radicalized by growing up amid Stockton's poverty. Guatemalans he met in the Peace Corps steered him to the Fourth International.

He sees the spirit of bankruptcy law as progressive. It should keep banks and other powerful creditors off the backs of ma and pa so they can get back on their feet.

Klein appears to hold a regressive interpretation, Kearney said. He's primed to put the hurt on ma and pa.

"He's actually creating a condition of such extreme austerity, Stockton will never get on its feet again," Kearney said. "And if it's replicated on a national level ..."

This new avenue of attack is all the more insidious because federal judges are politically insulated, Kearney said. Voters can't punish them.

Not that America's two-party system serves the people, Kearney said.

"The workers need to abandon the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, form their own independent organization and fight for power," he said.

Only a societal switch to socialism will save workers from the oppression and robbery of the ruling class, Kearney said.

"The workers should have a socialist perspective," Kearney exhorted. "And fight to take power and run things in the interests of society generally, as opposed to the interests of a tiny group of powerful people."